All around us

The majority of what I discuss is the loss of a person. There are also so many other kinds of loss—loss of relationships, loss of identity, miscarriages, loss of friendships, loss of what you thought would be, loss of jobs. That last one is very top of mind and very fresh.

Grief is all around us. Which is all the more reason I believe we should talk about it more.

Recently, around the United States, there were thousands of layoffs. And, if I were to venture a guess based on our capitalistic tendencies, these won’t be the last as 2023 has a bleak outlook from an economic perspective.

So let’s talk about grief in the workplace. The grief of the good friend on your team who you’ve spent years building a bond with, only to have them gone in a matter of moments, their picture on IM still there, but they aren’t. The grief of those who suddenly were met with shocking and hard news: we had to eliminate your position.

We tend to build a lot of our identity around our work. Too much, I think. But we spend a lot of time at our jobs, we build relationships with people around us, and some of those people end up being lifelong friends. Friends, who, after work hours, reach out to see how you’re doing after a tough week personally. Friends who drive several hours to attend your mom’s funeral. Friends who make you a gift-basket of grief-y things when you need a pick-me-up. Friends who you text, share exciting news with, swap funny memes, dog pictures or deep thoughts with. Of course, that doesn’t go away because the work situation changes—that one or more of you aren’t there anymore. But nonetheless, it’s change. It’s loss. It’s hard.

I was recently at an all-day department-wide meeting where we talked about change and the different stages we move through as a result of change. It reminded me a lot of grief. The denial. The anger. The shock. The reasoning. The bitterness. The mixed feelings. The acknowledgement. The inability to focus or get things done. The sadness. The bargaining. The acceptance. The learning a new way forward.

In an MIT article about grief, they talk about the consequences of not addressing grief in the workplace. “The amount and variety of loss people are currenctly navigating without additional resources while at work is astounding.” Now, I started the article talking about layoffs and when coworkers are gone suddenly. That is certainly a huge example of grief at work. There are also a multitude of ways grief shows up for us at work that may or may not have to do with the workplace. Our workplaces don’t exist in a vaccum and we are not only “employee XYZ”. We are first and foremost a human. When we lose a parent, go through a divorce, have a child diagnosed with an illness, breakup with a friend—all of this is part of your life and you can’t turn it off just because you’re at work.

I guess I’m writing all this to say: We spend a lot of time at work. We deserve to be in spaces where we can acknowledge hard things like grief. And also, layoffs suck.

I’m grateful to have built a community at work where I can express my feelings and grief. I know not everyone has that. I’m grateful for the lifelong friendships I’ve made throughout my career that have sometimes resulted in people leaving workplaces. In writing this, I hope you find your community, too, and whatever support you need to express your feelings and show up authentically human as you were meant to.